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Totally not a thinly-veiled ripoff of Harry Potter's setting. May or may not be tied to other things I've done in the past, setting-wise.

We're using nWoD Mages (despite efforts to convince me to run Rapture Academy), get the books if you need them, or ask the person sitting next to you if they'll let you look over theirs with you.

Shit for people to debate and some house rules:

Do you want to start with some XP, or just as starting characters?

If you want to request an NPC or two, you may do so.

You're all either rooming together (or same House, whatever), in the same club, or both. The Sanctum merit, or whatever you call the Mage-flavored "you get a hideout" merit that can be shared across the PCs will go toward making your dorm room(s) or club room fancier.

Without the Hallow merit, shared or otherwise, a character can regain 1 mana a day somewhere, somehow, on campus. With it, they have full access to a private supply, as long as they can keep others out.

Without the Sanctum merit, the best a character has for privacy is her dorm room, or a classroom nobody's using. Sanctum, especially shared, means a club room or some other nice space set aside for private use and interesting things.

The Library merit may be kind of useless, the school's got a large library, though finding what you need may be dangerous or difficult. Taking this merit would represent personal books on one or more subjects, outside of required textbooks for classes.

There are no Sleepers at the school, so stuff is less likely to generate Paradox on campus. Obvious stuff is still Obvious, though. Just without witnesses. In fact, the entire school is one big Demense, so as long as you're on school grounds, Vulgar magic isn't likely to invoke Paradox at all. (Unless you guys want to run those risks).

Whether or not there is a magic-damping field so students can't kill each other or themselves with magic (you guys can argue for/against), nobody's getting killed. No matter what horrible things happen to you, you can be treated with advanced magics in the school infirmary, anyhow. (All rumors of students most assuredly dying, only to awaken later in the infirmary are pure fabrications).

No riding brooms in the halls.

It may not matter as it's a one-shot anyway, but your classes all teach Rotes. So you'd get a lot of XP for those, or simply learn them in general if you don't skip or sleep through the lectures.

Since this is a school and not a normal Mage game, the various traditions and factions won't matter. You can use one to set up your character, though you can probably get more freedom in all areas, from rote selection to arcana you favor to rote specialties easily enough.

Spells requiring higher dot ratings in one arcanum, or multiple arcana can be attempted as larger rituals, with the participants contributing to produce the stronger or mixed-arcana effect. This takes time and effort and if someone screws up things may not work, but it's a good reason to get all your friends together for ambitious projects…

Normally, it's just basic teamwork; the contributors make their casting rolls and success gives a bonus to the leader. Here, multiple characters would be leaders, though that's…probably hardly gonna matter.

To cast a spell of stronger arcanum rating, it takes at least one additional (leading) participant for each dot all participants don't meet the usual minimums. Two characters with Life 3 may attempt a Life 4 spell, or three with life 2. And having more people around will probably still help.

To cast a spell combining the effects of multiple arcana, each leading participant must have at least the minimum rating in one of the arcana required for the spell, and 1 dot in the other required arcanum.

In either case, if some of these conditions aren't met, expect a small penalty on the rolls. Or expect things to get stranger than simply the ritual's failure upon a dramatic failure to cast it, or possibly odd events even on a simple failure to generate any successes toward its completion.

Such rituals and other efforts to produce effects a character cannot normally control and which are beyond their true understanding will ALWAYS accrue an appropriate paradox roll. Possibly with additional dice if the ritual wasn't done just perfectly. While the paradox effect produced probably won't kill you, it probably will be amusing and inconvenient.

Because Scribs asked a while ago: You only need one Mage Sight style rote/effect. I'll assume it allows one to generally percieve supernatural things, spirits, etc. in addition to its specific effects, although not always as well as others. (One based on Spirit or Death would obviously be far better at looking for spirits or ghosts, for instance.) And really, it's a 1-dot effect in an arcanum, it's probably one of the few things that is easy enough to generate without rotes at all.

Characters start with 10 XP, to round out skills, merits, rotes, and whatever else a bit.

Put your characters somewhere under this statement if and when you make 'em.scribs esoteric order of the character sheet You don't have to use it you can reimburse me with time.Kristina Vee A clumsy girl who's good with machines and surprisingly hitting people with them if pushed to it. Played by ScribblefagPurity Margaret An absolutely not creepy aspiring artist. Great with animals and relatively good with healing grevious injuries that people around her only rarely get.Rosemary Evelyn Daniels A somewhat mischievous girl who seems to enjoy pranks and has the oddest luck at times. [Orrin]